Share This article

At the inaugural Code Conference in California, CEO Satya Nadella has revealed that Microsoft’s real-time speech translation technology will finally make the jump from the mystical, bottomless pit of its R&D department to a consumer product: Skype. On stage at the conference, Nadella demoed a beta version of Skype Translator, which performed real-time translation of English to German speech, and vice versa. Skype Translator isn’t perfect, but it’s tantalizingly close to the creation of a Star Trek-like universal translator — or Babel fish if you prefer — that allows everyone in the world to communicate, even if they don’t share a common language.

We first saw Microsoft’s speech translation tech way back in 2012, when Microsoft Research’s Rick Rashid translated his own English speech into Spanish, Italian, and Mandarin. We then saw the tech again in November 2012 — but since then, Microsoft has been fairly quiet. Now we know why: Microsoft has been trying to squeeze the technology into Skype.

Your browser does not support iframes.

In the demo, Microsoft’s Skype and Lync vice president Gurdeep Pall has a conversation with a German friend. He speaks in English, and Skype translates it into German — and then she speaks in German, and Skype translates it into English. It isn’t quite real-time, but it’s pretty good (and language translation will never be real-time anyway, because of phrases, syntax and semantics, and other linguistic caveats). Microsoft says a beta version of Skype for Windows 8 with speech translation will be available “before the end of 2014.”

Personally, I was a little disappointed in the demo. Let’s not forget that it’s basically just a piece of software that does speech-to-text conversion (a la Dragon speech recognition software) — and then text-to-speech (a la Microsoft Sam). Machine translation between the two languages occurs in the middle, but that’s not exactly very exciting either (Google Translate has been free to use for years).

Back when the real-time speech translation was first demoed in 2012, it actually used the speaker’s voice in the translations — as in, it would convert my English into German, but keep my accent, timbre, and intonation. This was some seriously impressive tech that essentially reverse engineered your voice into a series of phonemes (individual sounds), and then used that information to reconstruct your voice in a new language — in near-real-time (the demo starts at around the six-minute mark in the video above). Presumably this technique required too much processing power, and so now we just get generic, Microsoft Sam and Microsoft Anna computer speech. (I wonder what Skype will do for gender edge cases…)

While the Skype Translator demo wasn’t quite as awesome as I’d hoped, in reality the lack of accent/timbre is only a minor quibble. The potential for real-time speech translation in education, business, diplomacy, and multilingual families is huge. Just by downloading a new version of Skype, western companies could start doing business with companies in China and other huge growth markets. And yes, there’s no reason Microsoft will reserve this tech just for Skype — a real-time speech translation app for Windows Phone would be pretty useful for travel…

Tagged In

Post a Comment

Ray C

Cool beans

Ivor O’Connor

I think perhaps Skype should attempt to universally run on the platforms it claims to run on before making more optimistic claims. (Optimistic claims are the same as FUD in my book.) When they can get Skype working on the latest versions of Ubuntu and Mint like they claim, not versions two years old, I’ll take this press release as something more than clever FUD.

Joe_HTH

Skype runs on everything that matters. Nobody gives a damn about Linux except Microsoft haters and idiots who don’t have any sense.

Vidya Wasi

Skype, people still use that garbage?
Due to security, privacy problems and the fact that it is owned by microsoft, an american company. Have made many people jump to an open source version such a software.
The ads introduce another security and privacy issue. Another attack vector. The ads use javascript, flash and html. Very bad.

I find it distasteful that microsoft still talks bullshit, use half-truths, lies and treat the audience as morons. Sure they are in america filled with morons but that is just an excuse. What about the global audience?
Microsoft’s new CEO is such an ass-kissing asshole. (I’ve met him)
Calling the technology for magic. It is only magic if you do not understand it.
White paper with source code, please!

Thanks for the mindless unconstructive comment that lack any intelligence what so ever. You have truly made your point clear.

Zunalter

How about this then…if it weren’t for America, being filled with morons obviously, then whatever backwards POS sludgehole you hail from would still be living in the stone age. Last I checked, it was foreign students clamoring for admissions into US universities, not the other way around. Last I checked, it was immigrants clamoring for H-1B visas to work in the US, not the other way around.

Cookies

*Sigh*

See why we can’t have nice things.

Why can’t you just give credit where it’s due?

This is some pretty nice technology.

Instead of making a rant about your distaste towards Microsoft, how about you just enjoy the fact that voice-recognition tech is moving forward?

Besides, the only one here speaking bullshit, using half-truths, spouting out lies and treating people like morons is you.

Vidya Wasi

> See why we can’t have nice things.
It would be a nice thing if microsoft open sourced it.

> Why can’t you just give credit where it’s due?
This tech have existed for years. Microsoft only connected them. Do you know what lego is?
Even better do you know what google translate is?

> This is some pretty nice technology.
You haven’t even been shown an unbiased test of it yet.
Hyped much?

“Besides, the only one here speaking bullshit, using half-truths, spouting out lies and treating people like morons is you.”

How about some constructive feedback? What are your issues?
Got any counter arguments?

Talk to me like you are an intelligent person.

Mirimon

I dislike nearly all of MSFT’s hardware products, and pretty much ALL of their policies and traditional actions as much as any other person, and while skype is pretty old, and far from the cheapest or the best, this is actually a tad savvy to put in there.

Try being less hateful and more objective, then your rant won’t seem so much like textual vomit from an angry child.

Vidya Wasi

I’ve tried being objective. I’ve tried talking with microsoft directly.
It didn’t solve the problems and it only made things more infuriating.
They do not listen.
They ignore you.
They give me pre-typed standard messages.
They give me vague political answers and other nonsense.
They behave like immature children.
They have trouble with ego.
They try and extort you money.

and so much more.

At least this way I get some release.

Hypocritical how others that have commented complaining that I “hate” when they do the exact same thing.
At least my comments are constructive. These other scum attacks me (ad hominem) and completely ignores what I’m saying. At least come with some counter arguments.

Getting so tired of all these people.

Mo Friedrich

From my experience as an administrator, 99% of the problems with Microsofts products results from users unable to read error messages, follow best practices or guidelines, are generally not tech savvy enough or just think they know what they’re doing, in short: its not Microsofts fault but the users.

Vidya Wasi

Should I even mention the utmost stupidity of metro on a non-touch enabled device such a as an desktop computer?
Is that my fault because I’m poor because of having a family?
Should that even be an issue given that windows can detect if I have a touch enabled device?

Some error messages could be much better written. Even a developer have a hard time interpreting them.

I’m a developer (and an administrator when forced too) and I know precisely what you are hinting at.
Most users are technically inept morons. Even so I know nothing bout cars and I just want it to work. Should my issue with a car not be counted as valid because I can not pick apart an engine?

The issues I have with microsoft do not apply to this.

Microsoft just refuse to do the right thing. I assume this is for greed and self-interests. Where I live monopoly is illegal. Good support have not been put in law yet though yet.

That being said microsoft do not follow their own recommended practices or guidelines nor write error messages that a non-tech savvy user can understand.
Microsoft are just begging for support calls. That they will later try and extort money from the user in order to give information that can be answered by a simple internet search for free in most cases.

Mo Friedrich

What is the biggest thing you were ever working at? I guess – and please don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to diminish your skills – it doesn’t get anywhere near the complexity or age of Windows neither the number of involved developers.
EDIT: By the way, did you ever try to get phone support for windows directly from Microsoft? If not, good luck.

Mirimon

hm… if the product was good enough, it wouldn’t need to be translated or require another professional to handle the task.. that’s supposed to be the point of this type of Operating System, it’s supposed to be an interface for the average USER…..

I agree, many of the problems do come from users not knowing what they are doing….there remains a significant amount though that are purely on the system’s end. What you are saying here is that people need to go get proper training before using the product?? Rather than simply make the product so that people can understand and use it without the need for college?

Mo Friedrich

Did you ever write a program consisting of millions of lines of code, a codebase written within 30 years, modified and developed by thousands of programmers? I know Windows can be frustrating, it can be tough to guess what a cryptic error means. But most people don’t even have the slightest idea what a monster in terms of code an operating system is.

Mirimon

it would have been easier if THEY understood it better when they copied it to begin with…

but no really.. there is a lot involved in it’s creation and upkeep, non of which has anything to do with what it must look and function like on the common consumer level. Literally apples and oranges.
Honestly, it’s time they cleaned house with their code.

Joe_HTH

You’re comments are idiotic and stupid. You’re just another open source idiot whining because not everything you want is free and open source.

Vidya Wasi

Assumptions are the devil tapping you on the shoulder.

I never said free. I only said open source.
I would still pay for windows 7 if it was fullly open source. That way I could fix the issues myself when microsoft thought it wasn’t “economically viable” to keep the customers that paid for the software secure or to keep with their own guidelines of a “good user experience.”

Ivor O’Connor

I have read your comments and fully agree with them. You made fair points and expressed them eloquently.

Last week I was talking with an X-M$ employee and he said much the same thing as you about that new CEO. Which caught my attention.

Joe_HTH

You have no taste, and nobody cares that you hate Microsoft.

Mirimon

wow… got that much of a hard-on for MSFT that you had to follow me across the internet on any disqus post, regardless of the topic??
it’s not me you are angry with, it’s yourself that you actually hate… unless of course this is your way of flirting, you do seem to be unusually attracted to me, but no thanks, I don’t swing that way.

qm

No mention of any alternatives?

Thanks for wasting my time, asshole.

Vidya Wasi

This is a link. Move your mouse cursor on top of it and click it with the left mouse button:http://bit.ly/s9ryLn

You’re welcome, bottom feeder.

Joe_HTH

You’re a friggin’ idiot. You’ve never met Nadella. You’re just a trolling little twat who needs to shut the hell up.

Nobody cares that you’re a shill and a Microsoft hater.

Vidya Wasi

How about a counter-argument instead of nonconstructive hate?

mint

the best would be a translator which lets me subvocalise, and then translates instantly in my own voice. that would be really cool.

RichardKLopez

Sure they are in america filled with morons but that is just an excuse. What about the global audience? http://goo.gl/gpKS7D

Mirimon

that lady has something on her face, I think there is also a cream for that.

Daniel Shepherd

The eyes and smile on that lady creep the heck out of me. And you can see they are not speaking completely natural from the mouth movements and the sound.

ounbbl

Remarkable progress! In ten years from now on (by then I will not be see the result) how will it be? As common and easy as car-driving and change our mode of personal and professional communication between people of different languages? It is going to be one of the greatest inventions in human history.

Use of this site is governed by our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Copyright 1996-2015 Ziff Davis, LLC.PCMag Digital Group All Rights Reserved. ExtremeTech is a registered trademark of Ziff Davis, LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff Davis, LLC. is prohibited.